Context: A majority of 80
political parties have sought a ban on opinion polls in their feedback to the
Election Commission of India, though the BJP in an about turn has said they
should be allowed. The Congress complained to the Election Commission after
some polls gave a clear lead to the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra
Modi. Just five months ago it had praised the polls for predicting the party’s
victory in Karnataka Assembly elections. The BJP which supports opinion polls
now was opposed in 2004. The Election Commission has told the Centre to ban
them from the date of notification of elections.

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Moderator Rohit Bansal
setting the context: Those who fault opinion polls say they are conducted by a
‘rogue’ industry that lacks funds and robustness of methodology and says what
the payer wants (b) Those in favor say they show which way the election wind is
blowing (c) if opinion polls are banned should not opinion columns be indicted
as well, because they can be construed as opinion polls with a sample size of
one person.

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S Y Quaraishispeaking
first: Opinion polls are a good thing. As a person who was among the first to
do a doctorate in communications and social marketing, I know the value of
surveys. A mature democracy like the United States places no restriction on
them. In Canada, France, Italy, Poland, Turkey, Brazil and Columbia the
restrictions range from 2 to 21 days before day of elections. (United Kingdom,
said to be the original home of psephology, has set up the British Polling
Council to peer review opinion polls. It has mandated full disclosure so that
consumers can judge for themselves – Vivian).

But why are they sought to
be banned? Because their integrity or niyat is in doubt. Paid news has made the
Fourth Estate the Fifth Column of our democracy. If media organizations can
allow advertising to masquerade as news, it is difficult to defend opinion
polls.

Defenders say freedom of
expression is a fundamental right. But it is a qualified right in India,
subject to reasonable restrictions. There is no right to cheat or defraud. Even
the Representation of People’s Act imposes limits on free speech. The Election
Commission does not allow campaigning before 48 hours of polling. It has
forbidden personal attacks on candidates. There can be no electioneering from
religious places. Since 2010 a prohibition has been imposed on broadcasting the
results of exit polls until after the elections. Appeals for votes cannot be
made on caste and communal grounds. This is because the Constitution requires
the Election Commission to conduct free and fair polls. This mandate is not
negotiable.

The Supreme Court in the
2002 Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) case averred that free and fair
elections are a basic feature of democracy.
http://adrindia.org/sites/default/files/Supreme_Court's_judgement_2nd_May_2002.pdf

Earlier, in 1977, in
Mohinder Singh Gill Vs Election Commission of India
(http://indiankanoon.org/doc/1831036/) it made the same observation. It
reiterated this three months ago, when it told the Election Commission to give
voters a ‘none of the above (NOTA) option in voting machines. The Indian Penal
Code considers undue influence an offence, while the Representation of People’s
Act calls it an electoral malpractice.

Even one vote matters.
Congress General Secretary C P Joshi lost by one vote from Nathdwara in the
2008 Rajasthan assembly elections. So undue influence is not acceptable.

The demand for restrictions
on opinion polls is not new: In 1997, all political parties said they should be
banned. But when the Supreme Court asked the Election Commission the law under
which it would act against violators, it withdrew its petition and asked the
government to pass a law.

Political parties repeated
the demand in 1998, 2004 and 2010, when the UPA government banned publication
of exit poll results before end of elections but not opinion polls.

The UK model is a good one:
Every pollster says they are right and their rivals are wrong. Broadcasters
have addressed the issues of paid news by setting up a regulatory mechanism.
The News Broadcasters Association has established the News Broadcasting
Standards Authority, which was headed by the former Chief Justice of India, the
late J S Verma. Now it is headed by former Supreme Court Justice R V
Raveendran. I am a member. Though the NBSA is a creature of the NBA it is independent
because there has been no interference in our work and we have taken action
even against the big channels.

There must be a similar
body for the polling agencies with full disclosure about sample size,
methodology, questions asked and so on. The British Polling Council is a good
model.

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TCA Srinivas Raghavan:I am
not in favor of banning opinion polls though I know I have been called here
because of a column I wrote in the Business Standard on November 7, the
headline of which was, ‘The case for banning opinion polls.’ In that article I
quoted a research paper by three mathematical economists (Roland G Fryer, Jr,
Philipp Harms, and Matthew O Jackson, called "Updating Beliefs with
Ambiguous Evidence: Implications for Polarization". The paper can be found
at http://www.nber.org/papers/w19114 ) The paper is based on advanced
probability theory and was propounded by a British minister Thomas Base,
dabbling in mathematics. It is called Base Theorem.

The centrality of that
theory is that beliefs get updated all the time because of new information or
fresh evidence. The paper that I refer to talks about polarization or how
people tend to form extreme views not on the basis of evidence but on the basis
of how that evidence is interpreted. The human brain apparently does not
evaluate evidence in a structured manner. It stores interpretations leading
over time to polarization. So two sets of people can form two extreme points of
view on the basis of differing interpretations of the same evidence.

Opinion pollsters can
influence the outcome just of the basis of the questions they ask. For example,
if you asked people whether Sachin Tendulkar is the best batsman ever, you will
get one kind of answer. But if you asked, whether they thought he was not the
best batsman ever? you would get another answer. So it is not financial
integrity alone, but also intellectual integrity that matters.

What will happen to opinion
polls if there are no advertising breaks ? Will broadcasters still air them?
Opinion polls have a revenue generating capacity. They have commercial
benefits; so it is not merely a question of who pays and who calls the tune.

The government can impose
reasonable restrictions by telling pollsters to disclose their questions.
Transparency and sunshine have the desired effect.

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Ajit Sahi of C-Voter making
a spirited defense: Who says polls influence voters at all. Does the government
or the Election Commission have empirical data? Have they done surveys? Have
they got feedback from voters? (Quraishi responding: The Election Commission’s
job is to conduct free and fair elections, not to conduct surveys. Even the
renowned British psephologist David Butler spoke of the ‘bandwagon effect’ in
Indian Express editor Shekhar Gupta’s Walk the Talk program on NDTV.)

[Actually
Butler supports Sahi’s view that there is no evidence of opinion polls
influencing voters. He did not favor banning them but sought full disclosure.
Click on
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/ive-never-seen-evidence-of-opinion-polls-influencing-voters...-making-people-go-with-the-winner-or-deciding-to-back-the-underdog/1193897/3
to read the talk – Vivian]. {TCA Srinivas Raghavan responding: Ajit should be
careful with words. If opinion polls have no effect at all, then there is no
harm in banning them. The correct question to ask is not whether opinion polls
should be banned, but whether they should be more transparent. That question
will yield a completely different answer}.

Ajit Sahi: In 1984, Prannoy
Roy of NDTV did a large poll and predicted a landslide victory for Rajiv Gandhi
(of over 400 Lok Sabha seats). He said film star Amitabh Bachhan would win
against political stalwart Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna and the late Madhavrao
Scindia would defeat Atal Behari Vajpayee in Gwalior. Editor M J Akbar of
Sunday magazine scoffed at the predictions but had to eat his words and write
an apology.

Opinion polls are not an
exact science. But then politics is not either. Does the government not do
sample surveys? (Quraishi: I am not against surveys if they are scientifically
done to inform and not to mislead. The Election Commission itself does a survey
of voters’ knowledge, behavior and attitudes.)

I was last year in Hong
Kong for a conference of the World Organizations of Public Opinion Researchers.
I was stunned to know the number of opinion polls that China does (Does the
Communist Party of China ask people the most important question of all –
whether they want one-party rule? – Vivian).

If a news reporter asks 10
people whether Delhi Chief Minster Sheila Dikshit will lose and reports the
findings, it is considered valid coverage. But if an opinion poll speaks to
1200 people and reports the findings it is sought to be banned. What kind of
sick logic is this?

Just because there are a
few rotten apples does not mean we should throw away the entire basket. (Quraishi:
tell us how to remove the rotten apples?).

If there is fraud or
conspiracy there are enough provisions in the Indian Penal Code to deal with
them.